Tuesday, September 15, 2009

Lucio Cristiani, Columbus, OH Shrine Circus

Posted by Buckles at 9/15/2009 05:52:00 AM

8 comments:

Jimmy Cole said...

This may have been the last time that different members of the Cristiani family actually worked together in a riding act. We saw Lucio and his wife Gilda, Mugador (Paul) and his daughter (I think her name is Valerie?) riding, and Oscar stepped into the ring to guide the horses.

Now THAT is Circus Royalty!!

15 September, 2009 06:14
Frank Ferrante said...

Amen, Brother Jim! ~frank

15 September, 2009 09:05
Jim A said...

Didn't Rex Williams work in this act while on CBCB?

16 September, 2009 17:26
Jimmy Cole said...

Yes he did.

16 September, 2009 20:11
Chic Silber said...

Rex (with a limp & a knee brace)

helped Lucio for a while in a

riding act called the "Franconis"

due to some agreement that didn't

let him use the Cristiani name

I believe this was shortly after

the failure of the short lived

"United Nations Circus" tour

which had many of the family

involved in a small tent show

16 September, 2009 22:31
Roger Smith said...

Exactly, Chic. Gilda did the principal turn, and in the big riding act the cast was Lucio, Gilda, Rex, Kathy Brooks (a Digger Pugh girl imported from England), and a guy I seem to remember as Raul (?). Lucio was still doing the horse-to-horse back somersault then.

One night, Kathy fell and was caught under the horses hooves. She went in with internal injuries, but returned to the show and her acts weeks later.

I remember Rex taking off after an earlier act, breaking speed records running to his trailer, changing for the riding act and returning to the ring just in time.

Even with jackpots being what they were on the '64 Beatty show, I never learned exactly why they had to work as the Franconis.

17 September, 2009 14:06
Chic Silber said...

I can't remember that rider's

name Roger but it wasn't Raul

You might be thinking of the

younger brother in the Suarez

family riding act a few years

later and the word at the time

was that there were outstanding

judgements against some of the

Cristianis including Lucio from

debts occured by the U N show

17 September, 2009 17:31
Chic Silber said...

Wow.. after dinner when most of

me tends to blend to haze a few

severely oxidized memory cells

sprang to life and I remembered

the young rider in Lucio's act

was Rafael

Often wish that I could remember

the important stuff (like taking

out the recycle bins)

17 September, 2009 20:51

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